December 2006 - Centralfloridagarden.com is like a mulch pile that got out of control - if you keep adding things to it, eventually something good will come of it.

In 2006 we broke ground on our new house in Hillsborough County. After an unpleasant gardening experience in our old house, I was eager to start again with a clean slate. But it would take a year to finish the house and I needed an outlet for my dreams. I also wanted to create a resource that I could refer to for information on my favorite plants and tips that I found useful. Finally, I was intrigued by the handful of web sites I had stumbled upon where the gardener showed the entire process of growing plants, from planting the seedlings, moving the maturing plant from place to place trying to find the right spot, the first bloom, the never ending fight against disease and pests and then finally a picture of the plant in resplendent beauty at the height of its flowering season. So, I decided to roll all these ambitions into a virtual mulch pile and maybe, if by luck, others might find it useful.

It is important to note that, while I love to garden, I'm far from being an expert. What I am good at is creating Web pages, doing research and identifying worthwhile resources. So most of this web site is nothing more than an oversized compendium of links.

And that leads me to my fourth goal for this Web site, to track my growth as a gardener as I track the growth of my garden. My dream is that based on my experiences over the next four or five years I will have compiled an extensive set of pictures and advice of growing plants in Central Florida that I can catalog on this Web site and share with others.